Drones for Indigenous Justice
Everyone knows about the utilization of drones for the war effort in Ukraine by both sides. For Ukraine, drones have meant the difference in their survival from the Russian invasion as they have performed search and rescue missions, reconnaissance missions, kamikaze missions, and hunting missions. With this effectiveness in mind, it makes me curious about another sector that drones could impact. After a research paper that I produced regarding Justice and Impunity for Environmental Defenders, the common concept around the lack of justice was that indigenous groups seemed to never have enough evidence to go to court and get their justice. After all, the only sufficient evidence they could have is usually just eye witnesses.
This could be eyewitness to murder or other environmental injustices that are commited towards Environmental Defenders (majorly indigenous people). If we continue to lose our Indigenous populations and Environmental Defenders to murder, then who will be on the frontline to prevent Climate Change and Deforestation. We are slowly losing our planet and our ability to rebound from the situation. Considering this, I thought of an idea that might help indigenous populations with protecting themselves from land invaders who want land for cattle ranching, logging, or ore mining and exploitation.
If drones were so effective in a war setting with lethal weapons on both sides, then why don’t we bring them to the battlefield for indigenous populations? These drones should have camera capabilities, and upon further thought, maybe a mountable siren that would scare land invaders away from indigenous populations. If we could educate a designated drone operator for each indigenous group in the Amazon for example, they could film injustices against them and report it to courts so that the state is required to take action.
